Three months after being forced to step down as CEO of Melbourne biotech Meditech (ASX:MTR) after a shareholder stoush, expat South African Chris Carter has been appointed CEO of Western Australian minerals-explorer-turned-biotech Acuron (ASX:AVP). [ + ]

National ICT Australia (NICTA), Australia's centre of excellence in Information and Communications Technology research, has announced an agreement with the Queensland government to set up, in partnership with Queensland Universities, a NICTA laboratory in the state.

Chronic hepatitis C patients at risk of liver failure, of cancer or the liver may take heart from a joint venture announced this week between Sydney company Life Therapeutics (formerly Gradipore) (ASX:GDP) -- and Italian blood-products company Kedrion, based in Naples. [ + ]

Veterinary drug developer Chemeq Ltd (ASX:CMQ) announced today it would reduce its staff by 15 per cent - 11 people - and delay its work towards entering the US market, because of the likely time and cost involved in securing independent regulatory approval from the powerful US Food and Drug Administration. [ + ]

Australian Democrats senator Natasha Stott Despoja has warned Australian stem cell researchers not to be complacent as the review on the 2002 cloning and stem cell legislation draws close. [ + ]

Stem cell researchers are gearing up for the reopening of the stem cell debate next year, when federal government legislation covering the use of spare IVF embryos and the moratorium on therapeutic cloning -- otherwise known as nuclear transfer -- comes up for review. [ + ]

A new survey of commercialisation activity in Australia's universities, medical research institutes and national research agencies shows they are lagging well behind their Canadian and US counterparts. [ + ]

Biotech Capital (ASX:BTC) announced late yesterday that it had reached agreement to sell its entire stake in investee company Xenome to Queensland Investment Corporation. [ + ]

Reseachers at the Howard Florey Institute in Melbourne are developing computing systems capable of storing and analysing large datasets from MRI scans of the brain, using grid computing technology to improve data management and analysis. [ + ]

A new report has found that US angel investors are pumping more than ever into the market, but that a shortage of later-stage capital is forcing them to stretch their investment into the post-seed stage. [ + ]

Cytopia (ASX:CYT) has sold its 22 per cent stake in unlisted Queensland biotech Xenome to Queensland Investment Corp (QIC) for more than AUD$3 million. [ + ]

Western society is wasteful of its water, a Sydney meeting heard today -- and the Minoans are to blame. [ + ]

A team of students at the Howard Florey Institute has won a national award for developing the most innovative product in the Young Achievers Australia Biotechnology Entrepreneur program for 2004. [ + ]

The federal government is gearing up to distribute more than AUD$200 million per year as part of its revised and re-badged grant scheme, Commercial Ready. [ + ]

New Zealand genomics and drug-development biotech Genesis Research and Development Corporation (NZSX/ASX:GEN) is keenly awaiting the unblinding of its Phase II clinical trial results for its AVAC vaccine for atopical dermatitis, after its UK partner's experimental vaccine failed to exhibit any benefit in children with eczema.. [ + ]